Top positive review

4.0 out of 5 starsGreat addition if bored with TTR Europe or want to speed up any Ticket to Ride Game

ByNathan & Kira Hugginson July 16, 2013

As others have noted, unlike the US version, this expansion is not absolutely necessary for the base Ticket to Ride Europe game to be playable, especially if you typically only play with 2 players. If you play your TTR Europe game often though, you may find yourself bored with the small number of routes and want to add some variety. This expansion pack does a great job of doing that and adds some different options to the way you can play the game.

Besides the added routes and options for modified game play, the addition of the warehouses and depots is quite fun. It takes a bit of getting used to (especially for those who have only played the US version), but once you get the hang of it, the added complexity is worth it. You now have to weigh your strategy of adding cards to your hand vs. the cost of using one of your depots. The end result of using the warehouses and depots speeds up the game considerably as players can quickly add large amounts of cards to their hand. I have not personally used the warehouses and depots on any of the other versions of Ticket to Ride, but they are compatible which makes them that much more valuable.

My wife and I always use the expanded routes and really enjoy the option of different ways to play the game, and also use the warehouses and depots about 2/3 of the time.

Overall this is a good buy, but not necessarily essential in all cases (like the US 1910 expansion is).

Top critical review

3.0 out of 5 starsA good pickup if the price is right - Europe game only

ByA customeron January 19, 2013

Despite Amazon's product description, this can ONLY be used with TTR Europe. While this "1912" Expansion doesn't provide as much value as the "1910" Expansion did for the USA version (mainly because Europe already comes with oversized cards), it still helps the game in several ways.

On the plus side for 1912 is all of the new destination tickets. These do make the game better, providing longer routes and making it harder for others to know where you are going. It also makes it more likely you'll want to draw additional tickets throughout the game, as there are many shorter routes added that make it more likely you can complete a route that is drawn in later rounds. From a variety standpoint, people will end up going to more spots on the board, and overall the new cards do freshen things up.

The other new component of the game is the addition of "depots" and "warehouses". Essentially, every player gets several depot playing pieces and a warehouse, and every time they draw train/wagon cards they must also draw/place another one on their warehouse (a colored piece of cardboard). If you complete a route to a city with a depot, you get the train cards that are associated with that warehouse (you can think of the whole concept somewhat like "free parking" in monopoly). We have found their use problematic in some ways, chiefly because it injects a lot of luck into the game, and also some rules ambiguity over whether a player could place a depot immediately before their turn (players place depots as a free move, and get cards for connecting to even their own depot). We decided to play that you could place depots only after your regular turn, and while an OK variant, we think they could have come up with something better.

The depot pieces themselves are also somewhat bland. Unlike the nice plastic station buildings in Ticket to Ride Europe that matched the trains and had some detail, the depot markers here are basically just pieces of colored wood.

It's still worth getting for the new tickets, especially if you can get it at a good price, but I almost rather they just gave me replacement train/wagon cards or a new colored bonus train or something similar instead of the depots/warehouses concept. Most folks will still want to buy this, but I would wait for sales and/or used sets.

As others have noted, unlike the US version, this expansion is not absolutely necessary for the base Ticket to Ride Europe game to be playable, especially if you typically only play with 2 players. If you play your TTR Europe game often though, you may find yourself bored with the small number of routes and want to add some variety. This expansion pack does a great job of doing that and adds some different options to the way you can play the game.

Besides the added routes and options for modified game play, the addition of the warehouses and depots is quite fun. It takes a bit of getting used to (especially for those who have only played the US version), but once you get the hang of it, the added complexity is worth it. You now have to weigh your strategy of adding cards to your hand vs. the cost of using one of your depots. The end result of using the warehouses and depots speeds up the game considerably as players can quickly add large amounts of cards to their hand. I have not personally used the warehouses and depots on any of the other versions of Ticket to Ride, but they are compatible which makes them that much more valuable.

My wife and I always use the expanded routes and really enjoy the option of different ways to play the game, and also use the warehouses and depots about 2/3 of the time.

Overall this is a good buy, but not necessarily essential in all cases (like the US 1910 expansion is).

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so you get in this small box a new sort of game addition - the dispanseries, which I personally love playing with but not everyone. you got a lot of new tickets, which is great, and a cut throat version of the game called Big Cities (tickets only), so if you're kinda fed up with the base, but love the game and don't want to buy a new board, this a cheap and great expansion to bring a new lease of life to this already amazing game.

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If your Ticket to Ride experience started with the American version of the game, you should have seriously considered the 1910 expansion, if only for the full-sized train cards. The European game already comes with the larger cards and with rather more complexity -- both in terms of how routes are claimed and the introduction of "stations" (a bit of a mis-nomer) that allow co-option of a route already claimed by an opponent.

The 1912 expansion is for the European game only and offers (as does the 1910 for the American) a larger deck -- much larger -- of destination cards. It also offers even more complexity (optional). As we use the game with school-age children, there is already enough complexity in the base game; in fact they tend to prefer the simpler American game.

My suggestion is that you start with the base European game. If you like it, you can go for the expansion set if only for the richer repertoire of destinations. And then if it becomes too boring, you've got another way (indeed, ways) to make the strategy more challenging.

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As the title of the previous review suggests, this is an essential expansion that changes the game play dynamic fundamentally if you so choose to take advantage of the new rules.

You could play the game using this expansion pack without resorting to using the strategies that it requires, but it is far more compelling and fun to take advantage of the new ways you could approach the game.

Players get a warehouse and 5 depots. At the beginning of the game each player must decide where to place one of their depots (in a city on the map). The game starts, and warehouses are used to store a single card a player draws before his or her turn. The player must then place this card in any of the warehouses (including his or her own) on the board (each player has a warehouse). The player will then draw his or her two cards per usual game rules. Later in the game you may, if connecting to a city occupied by a depot, collect all the cards present in the warehouse that corresponds to the color of that depot. This allows to to collect a substantial number of cards that accumulate in warehouses, and in turn allows you to complete your routs faster. In return you give up one of your four remaining depots. The player with the most depots at the end earns 15 points... but it's far more rewarding to use the depots to capture additional cards. If this strategy is used correctly, you could complete routs very quickly and get a head start early in the game.

One of the limitations of the European version is the introduction of stations that limit your ability to block people. This reduced the cutthroat approach that made the American version so compelling. This expansion, however, adds new strategic depth, and a nervous edge to game play where players have to decide when to make a move and capture cards.

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I love playing the Ticket to Ride board games. I like this expansion piece that I can add to any of the other 3 versions I already own. I like the features of the depots & the warehouses. The explanation or the rules to use them in gameplay are not explained very thoroughly & I didn't like their version of the rule anyway. I have adopted the rules in another way so that it tries to work for everyone playing.

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For those who like Ticket to Ride: Europe and need more variety than the base 46 ticket cards, don't hesitate to buy this expansion for the extra 55 tickets. The Depot/Warehouse add-on can be used for any edition of Ticket to Ride. (Even the train stations in the base game of TtR: Europe <could> be used on other editions.)

While the expansion includes three recommendations on how to play with the extra tickets, I personally find them best as general guidelines on how to use the cards, and not go "by the book".

As a word of caution, keep these cards separate from those the base game has. The expansion has copies of the base 46 tickets. I ended up storing my original cards in a bag to distinguish them from the expansions.